Watson's Last Case

by Ian Alfred Charnock

  The monotonous motion of the train across the plains sent Watson to sleep when at last he could dream of Mary, Baker Street, Holmes and happier times, but perhaps because of his army training and adventures with Sherlock Holmes he sensed danger. The dozing Holmes of whom he dreamt jumped to his feet and shook Watson’s shoulder. ‘Look out, old chap. Look out,’ his vision pleaded vehemently.

  Watson awoke to a rough shaking of his shoulder. He looked up and saw three rifles pointing at his chest. ‘Papers, papers,’ shouted his assailant.

  ‘In my case,’ replied a nettled doctor. The leader of the men turned to the case and rummaged through it. ‘You are Dr Watson?’ he asked suavely.

  ‘I am who my papers say I am.’

  ‘Dr John Ross?’

  ‘That’s right. Dr John Ross.’

  ‘You know this Dr Watson?’

  ‘I have knowledge of his reputation.’

  ‘If you tell us where he is you will earn a great reward and the friendship of Soviet Russia,’ the interrogator urged.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I cannot help you.’

  At that moment there was a scream from the next compartment. It was Mrs Rowbotham. The searchers had opened her husband’s coffin; they obviously wanted their man very badly. Watson looked out of the window; it was a desolate spot.

  ‘Now look here,’ he cried. ‘We are all British citizens and we are expected in Murmansk by the Royal Navy. If we are not there by this evening there will be serious consequences.’

  The leader of the group tugged his goatee beard as though debating with himself his course of action. At last he waved his hand, ‘You may go. Tell your people how we have hurt no-one and want only justice for all, Dr Ross.’

  ‘I will convey your message,’ came the stiff reply.

  Later that evening the dim glow of Murmansk and the lights of HMS Torquay were a more wonderful sight than any Northern light. As he negotiated the gangplank Dr Watson smiled broadly. At that same moment Jacob Sverdlov was grinding his teeth in Moscow’s ancient Kremlin and Mycroft Holmes sat purring contentedly in his armchair at the Diogenes.

  Envoi.

  What happened to Watson’s scheme to take the Royal Family across Russia, one which Kerensky had obviously thought sound considering the way he had checked out their train on its journey to Tobolsk? Mr Sidney Gibbs succeeded in achieving it some time later.

  What happened to the Royal Family? That is another story in which a tall, dark haired, well-educated man with long thin hands named Vasily Vaslevich Yakovlev takes a prominent place.

  Finally, what were the two letters that Stamford found in the lining of Watson’s bag?

  One asked forgiveness and offered him a Knighthood. He accepted one and not the other.

  The other contained a photograph of the Tsar (or was it Watson?) at Tsarkoe Selo sitting on a tree stump being guarded by three soldiers standing to attention. On the back was written ‘Vice versa. N.’ with beneath that a row of matchstick men, viz.

  accompanied by A & A, and finally: ïðîwàíuå — OTMA.

  Whatever else might have happened, Dr John H. Watson and the Romanoffs never met again.

  Part Three - A Scholar’s Appendix

  The Solitary Student

  ‘The proper study of mankind is man,’ Watson had said to me, quoting Alexander Pope, after we had left Sherlock Holmes working among his chemicals in the laboratory at Bart’s and walked together towards Watson’s hotel on the afternoon of their introduction to each other. It was obvious that Watson had found Holmes a very interesting person particularly his ‘little peculiarity’ of being able to ‘find things out’. I could see that this ‘piquant mystery’ had given Watson something to get his teeth into after the vacuous nature of his previous existence in London on his army pension. As it happens I already knew the answer to the mystery. My comment at the time, ‘A good many people have wanted to know how he finds things out,’ should not be taken to mean that I was in ignorance of Holmes’s new science of deduction, but I could see how Watson had bucked-up now that he felt himself to be involved in something singular and I did not wish to dampen his spirits by giving away the answer before he had a chance to solve the riddle for himself. It was just what he needed to help him recover from the dreadful recent past in Afghanistan and no doctor could have prescribed a better tonic for him. Thus I left Watson unenlightened as to Holmes’s secret not out of my own ignorance or malice, but out of kindness.

  As you probably know I am not mentioned as appearing again in The Study of Scarlet after effecting the initial introduction, and so it was. I had been involved in some foolish horseplay which had had some unpremeditated yet nonetheless awful repercussions and was soon to leave the country. I did not get a medical degree then — that came later at a far larger university even than that of London, although beginning with the same letter. I was waiting for a berth on a ship to take me to Australia to rebuild my life and serve as a penance for those whose lives I had inadvertently blighted. Ironically I was in fact acting on Sherlock Holmes’s advice, which was to be the same advice that he subsequently gave to big Bob Ferguson (the ex-Richmond three-quarter who had thrown Watson over the ropes at Old Deer Park) concerning his son Jack at the conclusion of the case of The Sussex Vampire. Three days later I was on my way to the Antipodes and a series of adventures that were to pull me up by my bootstraps — but I digress. There is time for me to outline those events later, it is Holmes and Watson who properly fill the centre stage.

  Holmes had taken rooms in London during his first two years at university, not after as some seem to believe. He clearly stated later in The Gloria Scott that after he left the Trevors at Donnithorpe in Norfolk he went up to his London rooms where he spent seven weeks working out a few experiments in organic chemistry. This was his first long vacation, he having made Victor Trevor’s acquaintance during the Lent term of his first year at College, not his second. (Just because Holmes said that Trevor was the only friend he made in his two years at college, it does not follow that he made him in his second year — as we shall see.) After the Gloria Scott case, Trevor left university and became a Terai tea planter where Matilda Briggs and I were to meet him later.

  Holmes’s second year at university — yes, it was Oxford by the way — was spent in even deeper thought and greater solitude than his first. It was during that academic session after prolonged personal agonizing that Holmes decided to act on old Trevor Senior’s words and become a detective; but not just any sort of detective. He would become the world’s first ever consulting detective.

  However, I am going too fast.

  What light can I throw on Holmes’s origins? His date of birth I never did discover[4] — it may well be Twelfth Night. Watson did leave clues for us just as Holmes did for Watson when first they met. As to his origins, he was from East Anglia. On this both Holmes and Watson have left us clues in the narratives. When Victor Trevor’s bull terrier froze on Holmes’s ankle one morning whilst he was on the way down to chapel, the wound was so bad that he was laid up for ten days as a result. Victor Trevor came to see him each day to inquire as to his health and they became friends. Holmes said that in many ways they were opposites. On the one hand Holmes was fond of moping in his own rooms working out his own methods of thought, and on the other Trevor was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirit and energy. Yet they had one thing in common which Holmes names — ‘he was as friendless as I’ — and ‘some subjects in common’ that he does not name. The main subjects that they had in common were their East Anglian origins and background which included the hunting, shooting and fishing that could be enjoyed on the Broads and Fens, and an unfortunate home life with regard to their mothers which was to make them both wary of women, but never unchivalrous as some have suggested, for the rest of their lives.

  As a lot of my information concerning Holmes came to me from Victor Trevor perhaps it would be more appropriate to put it in his own words as far as a nonagenarian can remember a conversation tha
t took place some seventy years ago on the verandah of a tea planter’s house in the Terai between two young expatriates who conversed about mutual friends in the Old Country while sipping a sundowner as the ship of one was being loaded with the tea of the other. Nonetheless I shall try and if the words are not verbatim, there are no conscious errors in the text, unless that is Trevor passed any errors on to me, intentionally or otherwise.

  Victor Trevor’s Narrative

  ‘My father was a newcomer to Norfolk. He had made his fortune in the goldfields of Australia and had come back to England to enjoy his hard-earned wealth. East Anglia, and Norfolk in particular, were regarded as somewhat of a backwater and Donnithorpe even more so, being a small hamlet of less than a dozen houses just north of Langmere in the country of the Broads. It was as though he were trying to hide himself away for some reason. He married into the large Norfolk Matthews family, his wife coming from a rather poor branch of that family, but after a whirlwind courtship they were married and had set up their home in the best house in Donnithorpe. After several years my old governor must have thought Fortune had smiled on him. He had a wife, two children, a fine house, was respected locally for his good deeds and charitable works and was a Justice on the local bench where he became celebrated for his leniency in an age of legal barbarity.

  ‘As I grew up my father and I became very close. He would often take me out on the Broads hunting wild fowl, or fishing. We would sometimes spend whole days and nights away from home. It was a great adventure for me which he would enhance by telling me exciting stories of his days in the goldfields of Ballarat.

  ‘My mother’s relatives would often come and visit us and would take full advantage of my father’s generous hospitality while patting me on the head and saying what a fine boy I was growing into, “quite the little country squire.” They would often ask my father about his origins but he would shrug off their rustic inquisitiveness with a comment like “it’s nowhere near as interesting as the history of your long line,” or, if they became more inquisitorial he would simply say, “why, London, of course, like I’ve said before.”

  ‘My mother was typical of her class, not very well educated — our fine library was like another world to her — and more concerned with social advancement than the acquisition of knowledge. Of course, it was, as I see now, a marriage of convenience. My mother’s name and connections gave my father an instant mantle of respectability and his money was a welcome fillip to the Matthews “cadet” line.

  ‘It was only slowly that I became aware of the tension between them. I noticed it more when I was at boarding school. Each holiday at home would have a more charged atmosphere than the last, despite the outward appearances and the fuss that was made of me. Finally it dawned on me. It was a marriage without love. Many of my school friends came from similar loveless matches, but it was a shock to realize that the same applied to myself. It could have survived better I suppose if my mother had not been so bored. She had very little with which to occupy her time, until the birth of my sister some years later, and so took to criticizing my father about everything from his table manners to his shoes. She found a thousand small faults in him. At first I am sure it was more out of capricious boredom than malice, but my obvious love of my father and our little expeditions made her more vicious. She felt left out.

  ‘My father organized shopping trips to Langmere for her, weekends when there was open house and she could play the part of hostess. Even the birth of a daughter whom she could cosset seemed to only partly assuage her ill humour.

  ‘Unfortunately that turned to ashes in all our mouths when, on a visit to Birmingham — a special treat for my mother, my little sister contracted diphtheria and died. She was only three years old.

  ‘My mother’s instant reaction in her grief was that my father was blaming her for my sister’s death — it had been a trip to please her after all. My father assured her that nothing was further from his mind and was kindness itself to her.

  ‘Perhaps as I look back that had been part of the trouble. My father had indulged my mother’s whims too much and she had become spoilt. Perhaps also she had been unhappy from the start of their marriage, feeling as though she had been bought, so that her self-respect was cheapened, and having so much leisure, her somewhat limited mind created all sorts of fantasies about people talking behind her back. Her people did the rather novel thing of emigrating to Ireland where they, in fact, prospered, but it had the effect of leaving her more isolated. Thus she sought to assert her independence by trying my father’s patience to the limit. She was more the child than I. I tended to support my father by joining him on our hunting excursions. This of course contributed to the downward spiral of ill feeling.

  ‘It was on one of these trips that two things happened, the one insignificant to a young boy of fourteen, the other profound.

  ‘As we paddled our flat-bottom boat in search of wild fowl we heard the sharp report of a gun to the north of us and the splashing and barking of a retriever as he went about his master’s business. Eventually in the distance my father could make out a tall figure. He asked Neb, one of the stable boys who acted as general guide and helpmate on some of these trips, who it was. “Oh, that be Mr Sherrinford of Holme Hale. He’s a rum ’un.” Exactly what that meant we never found out as a loud hailer was heard calling our names. “No more shooting for Mr Sherrinford,” said Neb as we watched the wild fowl disappear at the unaccustomed noise.

  ‘It turned out it was Neb’s father who had come after us with bad news. There had been an accident and my mother was dying. How a country woman could have been so clumsy in getting the bucket out of a well, no-one could understand. However, the fact remained that she had fallen down it and had cracked her skull and caved her ribs in. We reached her only just in time.

  ‘It is here that my narrative becomes most painful. Despite all the wrongs and hurts, mostly unintentional I was sure, though nonetheless spiteful, she was still my mother, but we parted with harsh words and remained unreconciled. Her imminent death had made her reproachful and proud, and it scarred me for life.

  ‘After that my father and I were even closer to each other and there was a tear in his eye when I chose to go to Oxford and not the nearer Cambridge. However, he gave me a bull terrier and said it was to be my mascot which would bring me luck.

  ‘Luck ? Whatever else it brought me, it brought me Sherlock Holmes.

  ‘My first visit to Holmes’s rooms after my dog had latched onto his ankle was only a very brief formal affair. He looked so pale and thin that I thought it best not to tax him too much. However, I went the next day and he was still pale and thin but much more talkative so I stayed longer. The visits got longer as we warmed to each other as we spoke about tutors, boxing, dogs, food and wine. It was very much to my surprise that one day he greeted me by saying, “Of course, how foolish of me, Trevor of Donnithorpe. You must know Sherrinford.”

  ‘ “Sherrinford?” I replied, puzzled. “I am sure that I have never heard of the place.”

  ‘ “It is not a place, it is a person. My uncle Sherrinford Holmes of Holme Hope, near Swaffham, in Norfolk.”

  ‘It was only after some memory searching that I could recall any such reference in my experiences. Then I was back in the boat with my father and Neb on the awful day when my mother had died. I felt a chill go through me; “see a Holmes and lose a parent,” I foolishly thought, unaware of my prophecy.

  ‘After that we were soon happily chatting about Norfolk although in fact our homes were the entire Broads apart and both very isolated, but we spoke like old neighbours about fowl brought down and fish that had escaped. I asked why we had never met before. Apart from the obvious reason of distance there was another reason. Holmes told me that when his brother Mycroft went to university his parents had taken him away. He was just eleven at the time. Perhaps it was the way he said it but I felt that there was more to it than he was revealing but I let it pass. As we talked I then realized that he seemed to be te
lling me more about myself than I had let slip. He simply chuckled at my dismay.

  ‘On one occasion Reginald Musgrave drifted into Holmes’s room to borrow a book and they chatted together amiably enough if a little formally. I did not like Musgrave very much myself — too proud by half, I always thought — yet Holmes would always defend him. He said that what I took for pride was merely an attempt to cover an extreme natural diffidence. If that was so I never really saw it, but then Holmes was like that. He could defend someone and be tactful to that person’s critic all in one. Despite his love for solitude he could be charm and tact itself when he needed to be. More than once I thought of him as a chemical compound made up of Anglo-Saxon reserve and tenacity with a dash of Gallic charm and unpredictability. He could have been successful with the ladies but his mind was on other things.

  ‘One day when others had noticed how we had struck up a friendship, I was asked, “Do you know how he does it?”

  ‘ “Does what?” I asked.

  ‘ “Knows so much about everyone? He frightened the life out of Dodgson the Mathematician the other day by saying that he would get better results for his efforts if he used a wider aperture with longer exposure and less silver nitrate when he was developing his plates. He thought no-one knew he had a camera.”

  ‘I had to admit to being as mystified as the others.

  ‘When he first visited my rooms for tiffin I asked him if he could tell me something more about myself. He seemed to take the room in at a glance and said that I came from a house which had little residual female influence in it, suggesting a widower at the head of it. He also pointed out that there had been a sister but her existence had been equally without duration or influence. I was amazed at his revelations because despite our increasing friendship I had not mentioned my little sister to him, but I was too offended by his cold manner to ask him to explain his conclusions. He obviously saw that I was deeply hurt and immediately apologized to me in the warmest terms which came as a complete contradiction to his earlier machine-like inhuman manner. Our deep friendship started from that moment. We never discussed our families’ histories again.